The Yin and Yang: Swallowtail butterflies

Review: Evolution Basics


  • Evolution:

    • change in the genetic composition of a population over generational time

  • Population:

    • group of individuals of the same species, occupying the same time and space, with the potential of interbreeding

  • Species:

    • group of living organisms consisting of similar individuals capable of exchanging genes or interbreeding successfully


  • Evolution by Natural Selection:

    • organisms with heritable traits that favor survival and reproduction will tend to leave more offspring than their peers, causing the traits to increase in frequency over generations

Brown et al. 2007: 6 genetically distinct lineages of giraffe

Evolution by Natural Selection: Darwin and others





  • Individuals in a population are not identical
  • Some variation among individuals in heritable
  • Individuals sometimes die before reproducing
  • Different ancestors leave different #’s of descendants



  • How did giraffes get long necks? (Lamarck vs Darwin)

What is Generational Time? Why does it matter?

Species are so specialized, they are absent almost everywhere





















How many species of bees do you think there are in the USA?

Diversity of living things evolves over long time periods

Why does this matter for Ecology?




  • Survival of the fittest is tied to organisms interacting with their environment


  • This term is a little misleading, should read:
  • Survival of the better designed for an immediate, local environment
  • survived death and destruction
  • reproduced successfully


  • The components and themes of ecology matters a lot!

Ecological forces drive evolution




  • Some traits of plants and animals are ‘conserved’
    • not easily modified


  • However,we often seem lots of variation within a species


  • Species traits vary over geographic ranges
    • why?

’Ohi’a lehua tree on Hawaiian Islands

Intra-specific variation can occur at short distances

Thought question:




  • Flowering times of plants at Zinc mines did not overlap with those of natural fields
    • for 40 years!




  • Why is this important?

Evolution also driven by species interactions



  • Selection forces: pressures on an trait by natural selection driving evolution of a population



  • Steam guppies in Trinidad are separated by waterfalls
    • isolated populations
    • tons of different traits across guppy populations


  • What selection forces could be driving these changes?

Predation, sex and flamboyance in guppies

Great tit (Parus major) and bird feeders (Bosse et al. 2017)

When species interact, co-evolution can occur

Co-evolution of orchid bee and ochid flowers

This Ying and Yang has happened forever

Ecologically driven speciation




  • Divergent selection between different environments leads to the creation of reproductive barriers
    • driven by difference in environment
    • driven by interaction with other species



  • Populations become isolated, then selection drives change

Ecology, Evolution and Global Change




  • Evolution drives adaptation but time is important


  • Speed of environmental change may cause evolutionary mismatches


  • Rapid evolution can/may occur, but depends on what?
    • lizards with more sticky feed (15-20 generations)
    • salmon migrating 2 weeks earlier (2 generations)

Take Home Messages

  • There is a reciprocal relationship between evolution and ecology
    • swallowtail catepillars


  • Ecological processes enact strong selection pressures on species
    • guppy


  • Ecology plays a specific role in a tenant of natural selection: reproductive isolation
    • giraffe


  • Patterns in ecological processes have driven evolution over very long periods of time…
    • flowering plants and insects